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Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell ◆ Language Acquisition Specialist

Empowering teachers to boost children’s language acquisition process using high-leverage practices in everyday lessons, especially for Spanish and English language learners (ESL).

Personal development

Myth #7: Spanish Mike is a taco.

Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell August 28, 2012 6 Comments
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It’s about time I picked up the task of finishing my myths posts! For the original post, click here.

Myth #7: Media produced for language learners counts as authentic materials (or, “The ‘First Semester of Spanish Love Song’ is the best video ever!”)

Most media in the world language classroom is a taco.  It’s not just any taco.  It’s a Taco Bell taco.

Taco Bell took the concept of a taco – corn tortilla, meat, toppings – and made it a mass-market hit in the American quest for more fast food.  But they fried the tortilla.  They added lettuce.  They made it as American as the hot dog.

Never in my travels in Mexico or Latin America have I eaten a taco with a hard shell.  My favorites are the tacos from the little taquerías on the border – the ones where you’re pretty sure you might get food poisoning but it’ll be worth it.  With tacos de barbacoa in soft corn tortillas, piping hot, with cilantro and onion on the side, sliced lime to squeeze on top, and a little container of ranchero beans. (Hungry yet?)

What’s my point? Taco Bell tacos are food (well, most people think so anyway).  They’re pretty tasty.  But they’re not authentic. They’ve tricked you into accepting a substitute.

Curriculum companies have tricked you into accepting a substitute by pairing cheesy, expensive media they’ve produced with their outdated, expensive curricula.

Spanish Mike and ¿Qué hora es? have tricked you into accepting a substitute by telling you that because students laugh, they’ll learn something (in a video that is about students not learning anything).  Señor Wooly is fun and comprehensible, but if that’s the only major vehicle of media exposure for your students, you’ve been sucked into believing this myth.

Authentic media is media produced by native speakers for native speakers of the language. By my definition, most translations (like Cajas de cartón, one of our Spanish 3 novels) are authentic, because they are produced by native speakers for native speakers.

I don’t mean that you have to do only 100% authentic media.  My YouTube videos below are all inauthentic.  Sure, students could use a laugh from Spanish Mike to take the edge off an upcoming assessment.  But don’t fool yourself that they’re learning much.  Flooding our students with media produced for language learners has produced students who cannot understand authentic audio or text.  It’s crippling them.

“But they’re only in Spanish 1,” you say.  For more on that, stay tuned for myths 8 and 9: Low-level learners can’t understand authentic materials and students have to understand everything they hear.

Play them pop music and news, weather reports and movie trailers.  Show them advertisements and read short stories and biographies and news articles and interviews and Facebook fan pages.  Coach them through using level-appropriate strategies and questions.

You can sing, dance, laugh, and eat Taco Bell all you want, but you’ll just continue to do what we’ve done for years: produce students who can [briefly] rap a verb conjugation but can’t order a real taco, hold the onion please.

Photo credit: K.L. Montgomery

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6 Comments

  1. Erin says:
    August 29, 2012 at 10:42 am

    Just must say, YES! A good challenge to put out there.

    Thank you!

  2. Profesora de español says:
    August 29, 2012 at 9:05 pm

    This is great!

  3. Dave says:
    September 2, 2012 at 10:46 pm

    I love your site! You have been a role model for me as I have tried to evolve as a language teacher.

    I was all about authentic input last year – I played my students music from all over the Spanish speaking world – salsa, vallenato, pop, rock, hip-hop, norteño, electronic, I also used the proficiency interviews from Texas, and commercials from all over the world (thanks zachary jones!) This was at the Spanish II level.

    However, as much as my students enjoyed the music (they loved it!), it wasn’t ever really comprehensible to them. I gave them the lyrics or dialogues in Spanish so that they could see them as well. We did cloze exercises, and exercises in which they did mini-reviews of what songs they liked or didn’t like. However, the aural input for the most part simply was not comprehensible. They couldn’t understand what they heard. At best they were picking up a few words here and there that they understood, at worst it might as well have been in Chinese. It was really fast, with tons and tons of vocabulary or slang that they had never seen before. At the end of the year, looking back it didn’t seem like the most effective use of class time because it wasn’t comprehensible input. They got something out of it (motivation, appreciation for culture, a few expressions here and there) but not in any way that they thoroughly acquired.

    I grant you that those benefits are there, but they seem to be quite limited. I taught at a prestigious summer immersion program as well that demanded all authentic material and 100% target language use. At the lower level, where I was teaching, I followed the curriculum to a T, brought in interesting and appropriate authentic materials, had students who were more motivated than the norm, and still at the end felt that they could have learned more in an environment where the focus was on comprehensible input rather than authentic input. The upper levels were different in my experience because they had enough time already in the language that much more of my authentic materials were appropriate for them. But at the lower level, simply telling them that they would eventually adjust to the pace of the language in songs or videos seemed to be somewhat cruel.

    I would be really interested to hear what strategies you use at the lower levels to make songs or videos comprehensible. I find it very difficult to make the great majority of the material I used in the past comprehensible in a significant way to my students. If you could continue to explain that more, it would be greatly helpful.

    I still plan on, and am, using lots of music in my classroom. Some of it will be authentic, but some of it probably will be Señor Wooley or others like him because I think it is more important that all of it be comprehensible. Obviously, the joke Spanish of ¿Qué hora es? , or 1st semester love song are not anything to be used as anything but a laugh. But I don’t know that we are producing students who can`t understand authentic Spanish because we don`t use enough authentic materials in the classroom. It seems to me that we aren’t producing those students because the vast majority of teachers are not speaking 90% target language in the classroom, and are focusing on form (conjugation charts) over meaning (activities focused on communication).

    I would love to hear your response, and the strategies that you use,

    best,

    Dave

  4. Kristy Placido says:
    September 3, 2012 at 4:47 pm

    Hi Sara-Elizabeth!
    I’m kind of between agreeing with you and agreeing with Dave. Can I be diplomatic and say you both have some really great points?

    I love using authentic materials in my classes at all levels, and in fact I am mildly obsessed with finding things to share with my classes! However, I also agree with Dave that it isn’t a good idea to leave students in an area of low-comprehension for very long. Frustration will set in, it will just be filtered out as noise. In speaking with Stephen Krashen about my use of pop music in my classes, he said that the more interested the students are in the content, the more likely they will put up with the “noise.” By noise he means incomprehensible input.

    I think that there are some good “bridges” to arrive at the authentic stuff. In fact, my ACTFL presentation on this very topic was called “Bridging the Gap to Authentic Resources for Novice Learners.”

    I use storytelling (TPRS), readers created for language learners (the language is authentic but lower-level and controlled for a more limited vocabulary, not necessarily controlled for grammatical structures), songs made for language learners, and non-fiction readings that I create by adapting authentic non-fiction information.

    Once I have “bridged the gap” by providing gentle comprehensible input, my students are much more receptive to authentic resources which are then that much more comprehensible.

    Another challenge with using only authentic materials if you are a believer in comprehensible input is that it is really tough to find things that work. Oftentimes the authentic materials that are comprehensible are not very meaty. To use your analogy, kind of like tacos al pastor missing the pork.

    By using what I call “semi-authentic” materials (no, Mike still doesn’t qualify!) I can put lots of very robust, real language in the grasp of my students. Again, nothing I say or play or have them read is “dummy Spanish.” But rather real Spanish with a few controls on the “boundaries” of where I take them with the vocabulary.

    I know you have lots going on this week, but I echo Dave in that I am looking forward to your reply to his concerns. I feel like you and I generally see eye-to-eye! I am also looking forward to exploring this beautiful new website of yours!

    Take care!
    Kristy
    kplacido.com

  5. Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell says:
    September 26, 2012 at 5:04 pm

    I’m finally taking a minute to sit down and give this comment the time it deserves, Dave and Kristy! Thanks so much for both comments – you make many good points. This issue of authentic materials is such a muddy area to navigate, and it’s why teachers often give up and resort to Sing Dance Laugh, etc. Be sure to keep an eye out for the next myth post on why students don’t have to understand everything they hear, and that novice learners can’t understand authentic materials.

    First, Dave, certainly a lack of target language and a focus on forms are MAJOR reasons that students aren’t gaining and useful level of proficiency. However, I truly believe that this one area is the principal reason students don’t have high proficiency in the interpretive (listening in particular) mode. I came to this conclusion after I’ve inherited class after class of Spanish 3 students who cannot understand native Spanish. And by “native Spanish,” I don’t mean that they can’t understand the lyrics of Mi Niña Bonita. I mean they can’t understand a native speaker introducing himself. Why? Because for 2 years they’ve been listening to the teacher model introductions. They’ve been listening to each other introduce themselves. But they’ve never been asked to understand a native speaker introduce himself.

    Herein lies the key answer to your question – students have to be assured and reassured that they are not meant to understand everything they hear in authentic materials. To push students to useful proficiency in this area, you start with proficiency-based questions where they are and then move on to higher questions when they get that. So in the song Minutos by Ricardo Arjona, I don’t need them to understand the nuances of the song. I don’t need them to understand all the lyrics. They are not allowed to feel frustrated if they don’t understand. I just want them to understand the phrases where he tells the time. I’ll play it over and over – someone will get it, then most will get it, then everyone will get it, but that’s all I need from them. I’m asking a question suited to their proficiency level even as I push their proficiency. Does this make sense?
    I do not believe in 100% comprehensible input for two reasons. One, it is entirely unrealistic. It does not even reflect the way language is naturally acquired. Second, I’ve seen what happens when teachers spend their time feeding students learner language: they produce students who cannot understand anything but learner language. I believe it’s more important to give them the right questions and the right tools to answer them as they become more and more accustomed to the way language really happens.
    I hope this helps!

  6. Musicuentos – Myths 8 & 9: I don’t do it because they can’t handle it. says:
    January 16, 2013 at 10:50 am

    […] I wrote about myth 7, I compared Taco Bell (audio made for language learners) to real Mexican tacos (authentic audio).  […]

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      • Musicuentos Book Club 2014
    •  November (4)
      • Lessons from ACTFL '14: if they have all the answers, they're trying to sell you something
      • What's ahead: ACTFL, best of '14, and the book club
      • Linguacafé: The idea that rocked my interpersonal world
      • What we learned at IFLTA '14: Everyone struggles, Culture leads
    •  October (5)
      • Communicative teaching in the shadow of [grammar-focused] common assessment
      • More multi-tasking children's lit
      • Next on my PD list: New proficiency videos
      • What we learned at KWLA: share, think, respect
      • The game-changing authentic resource guide for Spanish 3+: it's here!
    •  September (4)
      • Three days and then...
      • The technology that's making us irrelevant...and more relevant
      • Thank you, reflective teachers
      • See you this year? Conferences & Camp Musicuentos
    •  August (6)
      • How I teach La ciudad de las bestias
      • Putting homework in their hands: Sample systems
      • The First Day Story: Empowering with CI
      • Keeping games communicative
      • Let's talk tacos: Informing parents & students on proficiency
      • Regreso a clases! Ciudad on sale
    •  July (2)
      • Oso de Mantequilla: A tribute
      • It's coming!
    •  June (7)
      • What we learned at Camp Musicuentos
      • Lesson plan: Indirect objects and celebrations (template too)
      • New Podcast: What kind of corrective feedback works?
      • New resource: Educating parents and students on proficiency
      • Another resource: JCPS new curriculum documents (K-12)
      • Introducing the past tenses together
      • Time for you to get feedback?
    •  May (9)
      • Upcoming workshop (IN): Proficiency-based lesson planning
      • Stop calling this easy & fast
      • Revisiting Photopeach for the AP Final
      • Stop stressing: It's wrong to do the best you can
      • Three tasks for crafting an effective message: Black Box Podcast episode 4
      • A Year in a Day: Camp Musicuentos 2014
      • Taking care of business: Summer collaboration for a successful year
      • 4 ways to tweak the exit ticket
      • Black Box Podcast episode 3: To Sell Is Human, part 1
    •  April (9)
      • Top 25 Spanish novels
      • Let's play
      • New activity resource: Tweetfest!
      • Black Box Podcast episode 2: Circumlocution
      • An impromptu "langcamp"
      • See you at ACTFL '14
      • 4 ways to keep curriculum relevant
      • Tutorial on the best free PD you'll find in your own home
      • The Musicuentos Black Box Podcast: IT'S HERE!
    •  March (10)
      • Authentic visual illustrations of proficiency (Spanish)
      • Curriculum planning outside the textbook, Part 2
      • A week or more of working with Vivir mi vida
      • Resource release: Complete verb pack
      • Curriculum planning outside the textbook: Part 1
      • Corrections to simple verb pack
      • Is this the best we can do?
      • Writing a restaurant review: Activity from Bethanie Drew
      • Putting a number grade on proficiency-based assessment
      • Resource release: Simple verb pack
    •  February (7)
      • My favorite source for restaurant (and other) reviews
      • Guest post: A TPRS rebuttal by Carol Gaab
      • TPRS strategies I don't put in my toolbox
      • What I love about TPRS
      • Repost: Valentine's #authres from Twitter
      • How I use verb charts
      • Guest post: What students need- A leader (David Seibel)
    •  January (10)
      • Every language teacher's biggest mistake
      • My new favorite digital storytelling app
      • Why Genius Hour can't work in a novice classroom
      • Website review: Geoguessr
      • 2014 resolutions #5: Use more authentic sources.
      • 2014 Resolutions #4: Take a step outside the textbook
      • Reviewing 2013: Five blogs to watch
      • 2014 Resolutions #3: Survey your students.
      • 2014 Resolutions #2: Collaborate with someone
      • 2014 Resolutions #1: Read a book
  •  2013 (110)
    •  December (13)
      • The #1 Musicuentos post of 2013 (and the six years before that)
      • Best of 2013: #2 - Tips for the new AP
      • Best of 2013: #3 - Choice in homework, updated
      • Best of 2013: #4 - Novice song for Spanish Class Idol
      • Best of 2013: #5 - Can you control vocabulary?
      • Best of 2013: #6 - Is your lesson plan out of whack?
      • Best of 2013: #7 - Four habits that enrich vocabulary
      • AP Spanish final exam: Controversia navideña y Vacunas para niños
      • Best of 2013: #8 - Novice high vs. Intermediate low
      • Best of 2013: #9 - Using assessment to inform your teaching
      • Best of 2013: #10 - Spot-checking conversations
      • First-ever Musicuentos ebook: Reader's Guide to Ciudad de las bestias
      • Happy December!
    •  November (8)
      • AP Spanish essay - Obamacare
      • Vote: Musicuentos proposal for ACTFL '14
      • Setting goals
      • Don't go to ACTFL '13 without TELLing
      • Repost: A story for demonstratives
      • Listen to some Grammy music
      • Caring about the Really Big Deal
      • Calm before the excitement!
    •  October (4)
      • Using assessment to inform your teaching
      • Just some fluff: Makeup for busy mom teachers
      • Top 3 mistakes teachers of novices make
      • Book review: Teach Like A Pirate
    •  September (7)
      • Interacting with authentic materials: a guide
      • Using audio-lingua
      • Seven keys to a great story
      • Stations: Exploring music
      • It's a myth: Equipping students to communicate with... themselves
      • Turn a Novice Song into "Spanish Class Idol"
      • Is your lesson plan out of whack?
    •  August (12)
      • Children's literature for the world language class (Helena Curtain)
      • App review & Giveaway! High School Spanish
      • Choice in homework, updated
      • Back to school: Proficiency posts
      • App Review: Storykit (bonus - meet my family!)
      • Back to school: Evaluate traditions
      • Back to school: Blogs with great ideas
      • App review & giveaway: Word Magic dictionary and thesaurus
      • My authorized AP syllabus
      • Back to school: Musicuentos "first days" posts
      • Back to school: Give them signals
      • Going back to school with Musicuentos
    •  July (6)
      • Tips for the New AP
      • Don't be fooled! What the AP does and doesn't measure
      • Illustrating proficiency with a laugh
      • Snag some free apps while you can!
      • Stop asking for unnatural language
      • Fun video: Animals, present, feelings
    •  June (9)
      • Targeting problems with a pop quiz
      • Song, irregular present, part 4: Tengo tu love
      • It's my birthday - check out our presents!
      • A meaningful approach to grammar
      • Websites for creating online magazines
      • A world with no magazines
      • Guest post: Coaching with choice
      • Screencast: Photopeach
      • Communicative grading made easier
    •  May (10)
      • Health infographic: Novice - Intermediate Activity
      • A lesson in finding authentic sources easily
      • Tips and songs for past participles
      • Foster higher-level thinking from the beginning
      • Summer: Language for the fun of it
      • Novice high vs. intermediate low
      • E-magazines with learner appeal
      • Step outside the textbook: Tell a story
      • Repost: Novice description with Jengibre and Pin Pon
      • Interpersonal communication by choice
    •  April (11)
      • Novice speaking: Describing self with Sie7e
      • Can you control vocabulary?
      • Activities from authentic resources: Future tense
      • Why I love mistakes
      • Maternity leave!
      • Lots of your class gone? Pick up a book.
      • Abandon the multiple-choice question
      • Songs for future tense
      • I choose béisbol: sample "homework" report
      • 300 times thank you
      • Reporting like kindergarten
    •  March (11)
      • Training in circumlocution: Ban the dictionary
      • Fun activity #9: A leer
      • Last tips on avoiding burnout
      • Cortometraje for narration
      • Make developing curriculum even easier
      • Even more tips on avoiding burnout
      • Authentic resource: trivia games
      • Still more tips on avoiding burnout
      • Two more ways to ease into developing curriculum
      • Song, irregular present, part 3: Carmelina
      • More tips on avoiding burnout
    •  February (10)
      • Intermediate news activity for all three modes
      • Easing into developing curriculum
      • If you don't pay attention to comprehensibility...
      • Burning out or burning bright?
      • Keeping the class engaged: Change activities
      • Fun activity #8: A cantar
      • Twitter/relationships activity, just in time for Valentine's
      • Tech tools gone wrong
      • Grading regular free-topic writing
      • Add more music to homework choices
    •  January (9)
      • Spot-checking conversations
      • Song, irregular present, part 2: Hace tiempo
      • Four habits that enrich vocabulary
      • Paragraph form
      • Myths 8 & 9: I don't do it because they can't handle it.
      • Assigning homework
      • Song, irregular present, part 1: Sigo con ella
      • More choice every day
      • A novice cross-curricular activity from authentic materials
  •  2012 (38)
    •  December (2)
      • 5 New Year's resolutions for every WL teacher
      • It pays to have a focus
    •  October (2)
      • Best and worst games I've seen
      • Example: authentic text for novices
    •  September (7)
      • Success with Stations
      • More student choice in homework
      • Prezi: The Choice is Theirs (KWLA 2012)
      • Prezi: Kick the Vocab Quiz (KWLA 2012)
      • Take the leap to standards-based assessment
      • Fun activity #7: Conecta cuatro
      • A song for feelings
    •  August (10)
      • Screencast: Edmodo
      • Myth #7: Spanish Mike is a taco.
      • A study in motivation, part 2: Self-assessing abilities
      • It's my blogiversary - but you get the gift
      • Menus
      • Reading guides: Cajas de cartón & Esperanza renace
      • A re-post for your first days back: Abecedario
      • Screencast: Finding authentic sources for prompts
      • Maintaining personal proficiency
      • AP redesign: Units & EQ's
    •  July (9)
      • A study in motivation
      • Advice for teachers in training
      • More uses for Amor de mi tierra
      • Book review: The Talent Code
      • Songs for 'duele'
      • The Case for Commands
      • Got idioms?
      • Like Musicuentos? Like it on Facebook.
      • Very short times with very young kids
    •  June (1)
      • 5...4...3...2...1... LAUNCH!
    •  March (4)
      • Another change: Survey says...
      • Design your own final exam
      • What I'm changing this week
      • Repost for CSC12: Increasing target language
    •  February (1)
      • A storytelling success story
    •  January (2)
      • Not going to ACTFL again, but for the best reason ever
      • Free Ebook for WL educators
  •  2011 (56)
    •  November (1)
      • Dear novice-learner teacher - love, an AP teacher
    •  October (3)
      • Learning from #langchat
      • Not your average health unit
      • Presentation: Target Language: Expect More, Say Less
    •  September (6)
      • Spanish 3 assessment documents
      • For KWLA 2011: Media from Reel to Real
      • Accuracy vs. proficiency: an illustration
      • Fun activity #6: A escribir
      • App review: Tour Wrist
      • Myth #6: Memorizing vocabulary
    •  August (5)
      • Trending topic = authentic comprehensible input
      • Got the rubric!
      • New year, new units, new assessments
      • Jumping on the Animoto bandwagon
      • Rethinking "late" work
    •  July (1)
      • A song made for early Spanish 1
    •  June (9)
      • Proficiency & tacos
      • Proficiency levels shouldn't be a secret
      • Flipbook illustration
      • Ethics in the language class - we aren't their parents
      • Activity #5: Gira la botella
      • Symbol Illustration
      • Connecting your classroom
      • Myth #5: The textbook is all I need
      • Taking paperless to the blog
    •  May (2)
      • Combat the 'este tiempo' monster
      • Children's DVD giveaway!
    •  April (6)
      • Activity #4: Drama Inmóvil
      • Myth #4: The Time Whine
      • Have you used PhotoPeach?
      • The myths aren't going to ACTFL
      • Fun activity #3: ¡Arriésgate!
      • Fun activity #2: A conversar
    •  March (3)
      • Dismantling Myths 2 and 3: Learning about language and its cousin, Grammatical Terms
      • Activity 1: Cuento poco a poco
      • (Trying to) Make learning fun
    •  February (10)
      • Two new options for out-of-class fluency
      • Great resource from la Sra. Birch
      • Dismantling Myth #1: What's a qualified teacher?
      • Keep singing: 189 pages of Spanish lyrics
      • #Charlando para aprender
      • Vote for this week's #langchat topic
      • It's time for them to use their time
      • For tonight's #langchat: A game for description
      • Short listening activity tailor-made for beginners
      • Ciudad de las bestias: Guides public & streamlined
    •  January (10)
      • Instead of the vocab quiz
      • Best songs for stem changing irreg. present
      • Do something drastic - kick the vocab quiz
      • Topic for #LangChat 1/27
      • Topic for the first #LangChat 1/20
      • Low-level learners can't understand authentic media, what?
      • They can't speak, and it's our fault: Dismantling the myths
      • Don't teach a health unit without this song
      • Since I stopped teaching to the [AP] test
      • Faith and Culture: help me decide our AP topic
  •  2010 (38)
    •  December (4)
      • 9 ways to increase students' TL use
      • I love collaboration
      • The problem with translation (from a student)
      • Why music is more powerful than anything (& how to use it)
    •  November (2)
      • iPad giveaway!
      • A collaborative project for our Spanish-teacher PLN
    •  October (2)
      • And the winner is...
      • In the spirit of open source: Ciudad de las bestias
    •  September (10)
      • Books recommended as 'easy'
      • Pure present tense & at least 22 repetitions of 'ya no'
      • For a conference attendee: resources in math
      • Searching BBC Mundo
      • Prompts with Power: writing/speaking prompts
      • Prompts with Power: Prezi
      • Prompts with Power: German & French resources
      • Prompts with Power: Dating in high school
      • KWLA Presentation: PLN-ology
      • Tweet with double objects
    •  August (6)
      • Interactive comic creator using Maya & Miguel
      • Ads of the World | Creative Advertising Archive & Community
      • Added some great new links
      • First 12 days of Spanish 1
      • My supply list
      • Scope & sequence, word list for Spanish 1
    •  July (4)
      • 5 tips for increasing (your own) target language use
      • A warm-up from @samocamila: por vs. para
      • Camila's all on board! (well, on Twitter)
      • Getting vocabulary from a tweet
    •  April (3)
      • Huge toy giveaway from SpanglishBaby
      • A case for avoiding "pet" grammar
      • Authentic audio with future tense
    •  March (2)
      • Interesting blog post about iPod as language lab
      • News article: appeal + subjunctive for influence
    •  January (5)
      • A high-interest exercise for imperfect/pasado continuo
      • A song with 17 verbs in past subjunctive
      • My corporate Spanish links, all in one place
      • "Adora la Exploradora"-the week we didn't feel like a boring past-tense review
      • My level 1 and 2 stories (for Bethanie, and whomever else)
  •  2009 (78)
    •  December (2)
      • A song with 37 repetitions of "más que"
      • Switch to a communicative set-up
    •  November (10)
      • Print & audio sources for AP synthesis essay re: efficient energy
      • Two songs for voy + a + infinitive
      • A case for free-topic blogging
      • It's 19 de noviembre!
      • Camila's new single: "Mientes" (release date 11/24!)
      • A case for pleasure reading
      • Noviembre - a popular month for songs
      • Zachary Jones's "Clozeline"
      • Two songs + resources for Ojalá + subjunctive
      • A song just for @mamitati
    •  October (13)
      • You can't buy this in a textbook
      • Cultural connections: Four songs to explore using Google Earth
      • David Bisbal's YouTube channel
      • Correction on Pin Pon in Shrek
      • Four songs for contrasting que & lo que
      • Nominados en la 10a entrega de los Latin Grammy
      • Story and songs for subjunctive: indefinite/negative antecedent
      • AP sythesis essay sources: Los indocumentados y el sistema de salud
      • Blog that does what I do, only better
      • My October playlist
      • We must not ignore the Paz Sin Fronteras (video)
      • Build your perfect tenis (en español)
      • Video with por, haber, past participles, commands, from Coca Cola
    •  September (9)
      • Latin Grammy website gets a cool makeover... and nominations!
      • Songs for the elusive 3rd pers. sing. preterite
      • I just made my first Yodio
      • KWLA Fall 09 Conference presentation
      • Found Juanes on Twitter
      • For you French teachers
      • Bilingual toy giveaway, gracias a @mamitati
      • Keeping your eyes open for gold nuggets
      • CNN launches Latino in America
    •  August (4)
      • A correction on the correction of La Frase Tonta
      • I am in technology heaven
      • An AP oral presentation, with past tense: "Consecuencias"
      • I love crossover songs
    •  July (2)
      • Raimundo, the bilingual Latin American snail
      • A song for object/refl pronoun 'te'
    •  June (5)
      • A song for your hip-hop fans
      • Developing world citizens
      • Aquí Estoy Yo: video oficial
      • A new group on my radar
      • Two months later, back to the blogosphere (with a companion)
    •  April (5)
      • A most fantastic performance at Premio Lo Nuestro
      • The heroes speak Español
      • A brilliant pair of songs contrasting por/para
      • Useless grammar I used to teach
      • Adding some links--check 'em out
    •  March (7)
      • Negative commands + culture
      • Winds of change
      • Our students aren't the only ones who have speaking problems!
      • Activity: News interaction (present perfect)
      • A new smash hit with a subjunctive benefit
      • A shout out for Jacob & Joshua
      • El campesino y la princesa (a Spanish 3 story test, with a bit of subjunctive)
    •  February (15)
      • More interactive websites, courtesy of my students
      • A product I love
      • Good stories for commands
      • a story for imperf. vs. pret. and subjunctive influence
      • Interactive websites: practicing house/location/color vocab
      • Subjunctive for doubt: Story, song, activity
      • A good story for 'tiene'
      • A song for subjunctive/nosotros commands
      • A story for demonstratives
      • Rules in a communicative class
      • Cause and effect
      • Relating everything to English
      • A correction on La Frase Tonta
      • Equipping and informing, for free
      • A project based on motivation
    •  January (6)
      • "How much is estuvo de pie?"
      • One more song for subjunctive
      • A couple more subjunctive songs
      • An example of vocab
      • Internet scavenger hunts
      • A Spanish 2 story test
  •  2008 (40)
    •  December (7)
      • Videos from Jesús Adrian Romero
      • Alex Campos's YouTube channel
      • A story test
      • A video for Navidad
      • Great new song for subjunctive
      • ¡Nueva música!
      • A fantastic blog post
    •  November (13)
      • Ever heard of Patito feo?
      • Two groups you just can't go wrong with
      • Things to be thankful for
      • Grammar learning vs. acquisition
      • Forced to give grammar tests?
      • High aptitude is a beautiful thing
      • Another Spanish 1 reading
      • New media list!
      • At the ACSI conference in Dayton
      • Story success: Huevos verdes con jamón
      • Another story source!
      • Words we don't use
      • Song success: Hace tiempo
    •  October (12)
      • Overgeneralizing, again
      • Spanish 2 Story: La llama se llama...
      • Song success: Me voy
      • Not posting lately
      • overgeneralizing
      • The outcome of Pin Pon
      • Pin Pon in Shrek?
      • Best practices
      • Reading in Spanish 3
      • SCORE!
      • My media list
      • Awesome YouTube video
    •  September (8)
      • KWLA '08: Assessing comprehension without English
      • Song success: La llave de mi corazón
      • Spanish 1 Story: Insectos grises para el almuerzo
      • Finding stories
      • Modeling the billingual lexicon
      • When it's not all sunshine and roses
      • What on earth is going on here?
      • Starting to share my journey

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